TEMECULA: Despite odds, couple’s pinot noir wins awards

A little vineyard near Temecula has stunned skeptics who swore that Southern California is too hot and dry to grow decent pinot noir grapes.

Pulling out all the stops and stoppers, Woodworth Vineyards has been the dark horse these past two years for producing award-winning pinot noir â" a tricky, temperamental grape to cultivate under the best circumstances.

âItâs very unusual for Southern California to have a good pinot noir,â said Patrick Bartlett, a Palm Springs-based food and wine blogger and owner of an online store, Moodwine.com. âThe climate is too hot and dry.â

The mini-winery has scooped up nine silver and gold medals, shaking up the industry at the ninth annual 2011 Pinot Noir Shootout and Summit in San Francisco, where its inaugural 2008 estate pinot noir trounced more than 300 other labels from established, cool-climate turf, including New Zealand, Australia, Northern California and Oregon. Again, this past February at the 10{+t}{+h} annual contest, the Woodworthâs pinot captured top honors.

âIt was shock and a wonderful surprise,â said Barbara Drady, organizer of the pinot competitions. âI remember going, âchuckle, chuckle, chuckleâ when the submission came in from Temecula, for Godâs sake.â

The judges, however, werenât laughing. They praised the Woodworthsâ 2009 estate pinot noir as a ânice mesh of fruit and woodsy herbsâ¦ the sour cherry nose leads to dark cherry flavors on the palate.â

No one is more delighted by these accolades than the Woodworths, who ascribe much of their success to hard work, a good consulting winemaker and their ideal location.

âMost people said we couldnât produce pinot noir,â Marlene said with a smile.

Nestled in the hills of De Luz, an unincorporated pocket of Riverside County, the neophyte winery is only about 12 miles east of the ocean and thus benefits from coastal morning fog and milder temperatures. The 30-plus wineries âon the other side of Rancho California Road to the East,â said Marlene, 61, are in a different growing area where itâs typically 6 to 10 degrees warmer in the summer.

The Woodworths, retired executives, bought 45 acres of vacant land in 2000. They cleaned it up and began coaxing grapes from eight acres of soil â" including three acres devoted to the petulant pinot noir â" to sell directly to wineries. When that didnât prove remunerative, they turned to winemaking in 2005 after building their barn and 3,500-square-foot home overlooking the De Luz Valley.

âWe didnât want to build a winery,â said Gary, 70. The solution was to share a winemaking facility called the Temecula Valley Winery Management at 27495 Diaz Road that allows alternating vineyard owners access to its services and equipment â" a collective arrangement much more common among grape growers in Northern California.

The couple turns out about 700 cases a year under the Woodworth label, well below their capability for 2,500, Gary said. Prices range from $17 for a bottle of rose to $33 for a pinot noir. Last year their sales, still modest, hit about $70,000, but âweâre still growing the business,â Marlene said.

Woodworthâs 2009 pinot noir is available online at Moodwine.com or at The Collective, an intimate two-story tasting room at 28544 Front Street in Temecula. For more information go to www.WoodworthWine.com and www.facebook.com/WoodworthVineyards

Their wine has received rave reviews, said Bartlett, who served it to the cast and crew of a stage production of âSidewaysâ last month in Santa Monica with author Rex Pickett.

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